


Hymn for the Missing

by Coppercrow



Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coppercrow/pseuds/Coppercrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grief is not exclusive to humans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hymn for the Missing

**Author's Note:**

> Re-posted and re-worked from my fanfiction.net account. This was inspired by the song 'Hymn for the Missing' by Red. It's not necessary for the fic, but f you haven't heard it, I recommend checking it out - it's so sad but utterly beautiful.

In the silence of the office, the merry tune of Mephisto's ringtone rung through the air.

Mephisto stared at the phone and then at the name that flashed up in bright letters of the screen: Okumura Yukio. With clawed fingers, he reached out to grab the phone, only to hesitate.

Something felt  _wrong_. Mephisto wasn't one for superstition or gut feelings – he was far to civilised for that, thank you very much. Yet for some reason, every inch of him was screaming, saying: DO NOT ANSWER THAT PHONE.

Really, it was completely silly, a load of nonsense. Superstition such as that belonged back in the Dark Ages, not in the neon lit 21st century. He was being utterly ridiculous. He should just pick up the phone and answer it. His fingers twitched, black claws scrapping the pink casing. Only…why would Okumura be ringing him? There should be no need for the young exorcist to contact him. Exorcists of young Okumura’s rank reported to their supervisors, not to him.

The phone continued to ring.

Mephisto’s hand hovered above the phone…

Then he shook his head and grabbed it before he could hesitate any more.

"Guten abend, Okumura-kun. What can I do for you?" asked Mephisto, disguising the last traces of his uncertainty behind a mask of exuberance.

The phone was silent for a few long moments. It was punctuated only by a few ragged breathes and Mephisto felt that feeling of  _wrongness_  curl in his gut.

"…there has been an incident at the church, Sir" said the teenager, his voice echoing hollowly over the phone.

Mephisto's grip on the phone tightened imperceptibly.

"My brother had begun to awaken - the seal on the sword started to decay…apparently, there was an altercation between Father and my brother. Father -" the young exorcist halted suddenly. There was sound like someone trying desperately to breathe – a harsh, painful sound. Then the teen was speaking again, voice dull, "Father was possessed by Satan. He created a Gehenna gate. Rin drew Kurikara and destroyed it…"

There was a moment of utter silence, and then Yukio continued in a voice devoid of all emotion: "I am sorry to report that the Paladin, Fujimoto Shiro, is dead, Sir."

The phone clicked and then Yukio was gone.

Mephisto stared at the phone. The monotonous beep-beep-beep of the dial echoed in his ears.

He should never have answered that phone.

 

-X.X.X.X-

_The darkness sunk into Mephisto's bones. It clawed its way down his throat, trickling through the veins of his body, drowning his words in nothingness. He reached behind him, grasping for his companion._

_There was naught but thin air._

_He turned, searching, but there was nothing to be found – only darkness._

_It washed over him, pummelling him, beating him down._

_He fell to his knees, mute._

_His lips formed a single word over and over again as he knelt in the darkness: Shiro._

 

-X.X.X.X-

 

Time passed.

How long, Mephisto wasn't quite sure. Minutes, hour, days, who knew? It was a blur of half-formed thoughts and silent screams in the darkness. What little he did sleep was plagued phantasms, faces hidden in shadow.

Time trickled and rushed, crawling by hour by hour yet at the same time dragging him along whether he wanted to be dragged or not.

Before he knew it, he was being notified that today was Shiro's funeral.

And Mephisto knew what he had to do. He couldn't let a half-bred son of Satan roam Assiah. It would cause naught but problems in the long run.

And besides, a part of him - a very large part of him if he were honest, clamoured for the boy's death. He wanted to see the life bleed from his _‘little brother’s’_ eyes, see his blood stain the ground crimson. Because Mephisto wasn’t tame, for all he might cultivate an air of humanity. He was old and powerful and, above all else, a demon. It was only natural that he thirsted for the bloodiest of revenges.

Because it _was_ that brats fault, after all; Shiro was dead because of Okumura Rin. It would be fitting retribution, to bring about the death of the one responsible for his old friend's _– friend? He was more than a friend, you coward_  – death.

And so he clad himself in his gaudy finery and gather a team of exorcists to aid him in the deed, all the while ignoring the voice whispering in his ear, asking him what Shiro would think of what he was about to do.

-X.X.X.X-

 

_He stood on the shore of nothingness. Wavelets lapped at the tip of his boots. The water was black. The pebbles were black. Everywhere he turned, everything was black. Only the fog that shrouded the water was different, but the stark white was almost worse than the black…_

_"- where are you?"_

_The voice echoed over the water, muffled and distorted by the fog. Mephisto froze. That voice…_

_"Mephisto? Is that you? Are you there?"_

_The breath caught in Mephisto's throat. He knew that voice._

_"Where are you?"_

_The voice was coming from deep within the fog. Logic told him that he shouldn't follow it, that it couldn't be-_

_"Are you coming?"_

_Mephisto plunged into the water. It clung to him, dragging at his limbs. He pushed onwards, into the billowing fog, breath coming in harsh pants._

_"Shiro? Are you there? Shiro!" he called, struggling on though the water._

_A muffled sound; little more than a whisper, it caught his attention. He spun, trying to locate it. It was so hard to move. His limbs were lead. He tried to move, tried to do anything but he was paralysed._

_Out of the corner of his eye he saw a shape moving away but then it was gone, swallowed by the white._

 

-X.X.X.X-

 

He didn't kill the boy.

Oh, he'd intended to.

He'd stood in that graveyard and looked at the boy – Shiro's son – and given him his options. He'd expected the teen to run, to fight, but instead –

Staring out into the night, Mephisto's mouth curled into a wry smile as he remembered his little brother's words.

"I'm gonna beat the shit outta Satan!"

Somewhere, Mephisto was sure, Shiro was laughing. Looking back, it was obvious that the boy would never he chosen any of the options put before him. He was too much like Shiro for that. No matter that boy’s blood, he was Shiro’s son in all the ways that mattered.

Sighing, the demon rested his head against the glass, breath fogging the window with each painful breath.

"Shiro, you damnable idiot, why did you have to go?"

-X.X.X.X-

 

_In the darkness, Mephisto could see Shiro walking away from him._

_The demon ran after him, but no matter how hard he ran the distance between them never grew smaller. He called out to Shiro, again and again but the exorcist showed no sign of hearing him._

_With every step, Mephisto grew more exhausted. His legs were head, they couldn't move –_

_He fell and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shiro vanish into the nothingness._

_He reached out in the darkness, and imagined Shiro's calloused palm grasping his hand and pulling him up._

_It never came._

 

-X.X.X.X-

 

The controller smashed into the television with a sickening crack. Cracks spider webbed across the inky screen. It rocked, teetering on the edge of the stand. There was a moment where time seemed to stand still –

Then it fell, slamming into the ground with a thump.

Fragments of the screen sprayed outward, adding to the chaos of the room.

Paper lay scattered and torn. Manga huddled in corners, their cover bent and pages ripped. Rubbish – the detritus of days' worth of junk food – covered the plush pink carpet.

Plushies lay disembowelled, glass eyes pleading. Beanbags split their innards over the ground.

And, amongst it all, stood Mephisto.

Clad in a magenta yukata, he looked painfully thin. His hair, normally immaculate, hung limply, framing his pale face. The circles under his eyes were almost black, speaking of sleepless nights.

In his hands, he clutched the one item that had escaped his wrath.

It was a picture frame – nothing fancy, just dark wood, slightly scuffed at the edges.

Held in the frame was a picture of two men – Mephisto and another young man with hair bleached blond and a pair of round glasses.

The man's arm was slung around the shoulders of a smirking Mephisto. They were happy.

As Mephisto stared at the figures, frozen in time, a single tear trickled down his cheek.

 

-X.X.X.X-

 

_Mephisto stumbled through the darkness. His breathe came in ragged gasps but he could not hear it. He was running but he never seemed to move. Tears fell but they had no substance_

_It was an endless expanse nothingness. There was no respite, no end._

_There was no one but Mephisto._

_Words fell without sound from his lips. He pleaded in silence to Shiro to come back, to be here with him._

_For somebody, anybody to rescue him from the dark._

_Nobody came._

_Darkness is yet darker still when there is no one to brave it with you._

 

-X.X.X.X-

 

Mephisto stood in front of the grave, close enough to touched it.

It was a simple headstone. The plain cross was near identical to many of the others in this cemetery – pale stone that was slowly being weathered.

The grave was bathed in sunlight. The day mocked him with its brightness. Why should the sun shine brightly when he was plagued by darkness?

"I always knew that you'd die one day," Mephisto said quietly, his voice devoid of its normal cheer, "but I never thought it would come this soon."

It had been a reality that the demon had tried so long to ignore.

His lifespan was always going to be longer than Shiro's and every day he'd seen the passage of time carry the exorcist further away from him. He'd seen the days, then months and then finally years tick by, seen Shiro's hair go grey and his body age. He'd known this day would come, and yet…

"I wanted you to stay," he admitted, stepping forward to rest a lavender gloved hand on the warm stone.

"You left and I had to stay," he whispered, the brim of his hat casting his features into shadow. His fingers pressed harder against the stone and his shoulder hunched beneath his cloak.

He’s wasted so much time. Time that he would never get back. It was ironic. He was Samael, the King of Time and yet he couldn’t alter that one thing he wished to change.

With a deep breathe he straightened himself and with a turn and a count of 'Eins! Zwei! Drei!' he was gone in a cloud of pink smoke.

At the base of the grave, a single droplet of water slowly faded in the heat if the sun.

 

-X.X.X.X-

 

_The corridor was white. The walls were utterly blank. Not pictures hung on them. There were no windows, no doors, nothing but walls, stretching on and on. Mephisto looked at the whiteness with distaste. As much as he like white, it was better with a bit of colour thrown in. Really, this corridor would look that better white a splash of pink-_

_"It looks horrible, I know," said a voice behind the demon. It was so utterly, painfully familiar. He tried to turn but he was fixed in place._

_"I'm sorry I left," continued Shiro – because it was Shiro, that much Mephisto knew for certain. His voice was sad and the demon knew that his eyes would be downcast now, "I didn't want to leave."_

_There was a sigh and a rustling of fabric._

_"Things…didn't go to plan."_

_Mephisto laughed, a humourless noise that was more painful than any cry._

_"You don't say," he said, his voice light though inside he was anything but._

_Shiro sighed again and then Mephisto shivered as a hand brushed across his back. He leant back ever so slightly and a moment later Shiro’s arms wrapped around his waist and familiar warmth soaked into his body._

_His breath hitched and he intertwined his fingers with Shiro's, holding tightly to them. He wished that he wasn't wearing gloves, that he could rest skin against skin –_

_"I have to go," muttered Shiro, and Mephisto felt something inside him tear._

_"No...Shiro -" he said, tightening his grip and Shiro paused for just a moment as Mephisto whispered, "Will I ever see you again?"_

_But then Shiro was gone, and the lingering scent of cigarette smoke the only sign he'd ever been there._

 


End file.
